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Show copper, lead, nickel, aluminum, manganese, mercury, cotton, wool, and vanadium. Rubber and coal (also a little tin and zinc) would be available, however, to Japan in French Indo-China and Thailand. Without these essential war materials, Japan would not be able to supply for very long her two and a half million troops fighting against the Chinese. Nor would she be able to put up much of a battle against the Russians, or support sup-port an army In a drive southward. In desperation, the Jap navy would be forced to give battle to the slightly superior U. S. Pacific fleet (12 U. S. battleships vs. 10 .Japanese) supported by British and Netherlands units. To continue to appease Japan Ja-pan Is to court disaster. This is true because Russian forces in the Far East are continually growing weaker; the British forces in the Par East are larger now, as a result of the Russo-German war, than they -will be. in the future when a German invasion faces the Bri- MARCH By II. S. Sims, Jr. , , ' " I'.INIIlll'll.ll" hoi I) V. S. ACTION WILL STOP j VPAN NOW-P. S. STRENGTH By means of a move into French Imlo-China, Jap statesmen partially par-tially camouflaged their mobilization mobiliza-tion of troops for a Russian encounter. en-counter. Chinese authorities report that the Japs are preparing an army of two million to hurl against the Soviet when the opportune time comes. Today, the Russians have about 700,000 soldiers that could be thrown into a battle against the Japanese on the Far Eastern front. These soldiers sol-diers are especially trained to fight against the Japs, and are considered among Russia's "best." tish Isles; the Chinese position posi-tion is weakening with the Japs only a few hundred miles by land from the Burma Road, her only life-line; and the Japs through conquest are getting closer to war self-sufficiency. The Russians also have in the vicinity of Vladivostok an estimated esti-mated 100 U-boats, which could disrupt the major portion of Jap shipping in the narrow Sea of Japan, Ja-pan, in addition, there are over 1000 Soviet planes located in the Viadivstok area; incidentally, the Russian city is about 650 miles, or less than two hours by air, from the vulnerable Jap capital. 000 tons of rubber, 800,000 tons of coal, hundreds of tons of tin, zinc, and tungsten, and almost 2,000,000 tons of rice). The day of reasoning with Japan is over. Let us remember remem-ber that the Japs set the precedent pre-cedent in power politics for the other dictator countries in their conquest of Manchuria in 1930. Let us also remember that the Japs have aligned themselves with the Germans and thus must be crushed before be-fore world harmony can become be-come a reality. The U. S. must take the lead if there is to be a showdown with the Japs in the near future. The British Empire and the Netherlands Nether-lands Indies are ready to join with us in a war with Japan. And, of course, Russia would be extremely glad to fight with the U. S. in a war to protect her Siberian interests. inter-ests. For a Far East war to be a success, the Jap navy must either be destroyed or surrendered. surren-dered. The Jap navy would be forced to fight by a U. S.British S.-British blockade. For, such action would practically practi-cally cut off all war materials: iron ore, pig iron, scrap iron, oil, This strong Russian defense force would make a Jap conquest con-quest of Siberia extremely costly if not impossible at the present time. However, it should be remembered that Russia is struggling with the crack Nazi army in a war in which it is expected to be defeated. de-feated. Before Hitlerites are allowed to run wild over the Soviet's western armies, Stalin will throw his Siberian Si-berian troops against the Nazis. This will leave the door open to Japan unless U. S. troops occupy the Vladivostok area. The longer the U. S. puts off a Far East conflict by appeasing ap-peasing Japan the more serious ser-ious the situation becomes. Hitler's ever-strengthening po-siion po-siion In his fight for self-sufficiency bears witness to the folly of an appeasement policy. pol-icy. . . Here's what our appeasement policy is doing: It is keeping more than three-fourths of the U. S. navy out of the battle of the Atlantic; At-lantic; it is preventing Russia from employing her full strength against Nazi columns; it is preventing pre-venting a Chinese victory; and it is allowing the Japs to start on the road to war self-sufficiency via conquest (through the occupation of French Indo-China, Japan gained gain-ed an annual production of 70,- |